iPhone 5 may support Near Field Communication (NFC) transactions

NFC is way cool. Imagine going to a store, filling up your shopping bags, and, instead of going through checkout, you simply tap your iPhone on a sensor as you leave the store. Voila, the items in your shopping bags are automatically charged to your credit card. And frankly, Apple is a bit behind in this area, with some phones already having this capability. Last month it was reported that MasterCard certified 17 different NFC phones to work with its PayPass system. 9To5Mac is reporting that the iPhone 5 may have an NFC chip. It's hard to believe that Apple would fall behind on this, so this rumor seems likely. Blogs such as iMore are speculating that the chip would work with Apple's Passbook app that they announced will be part of iOS 6 this fall. Passbook consolidates your boarding passes, movie tickets, retail coupons, loyalty cards, and more all in one app. But NFC isn't just useful for payments. 9To5Mac suggests that it could also be used as a quick and easy way to share files between iOS devices.

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Jim Karpen holds a Ph.D. in literature and writing, and has a love of gizmos. His doctoral dissertation focused on the revolutionary consequences of digital technologies and anticipated some of the developments taking place in the industry today. Jim has been writing about the Internet and technology since 1994 and has been using Apple's visionary products for decades.